The December issue of the Journal of Medical Toxicology, the official journal of the American College of Medical Toxicology, features the 2013 annual report from the Toxicology Investigators Consortium.

Adverse drug reactions ranked as the 4th most common reason for evaluation by a medical toxicologist....

Phoenix, Arizona (PRWEB) December 09, 2014

The December issue of the Journal of Medical Toxicology (JMT) features the Annual Report of the Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC). This report details the ToxIC Registry, which prospectively collects de-identified information on patients cared for at the bedside by medical toxicologists as hospitalized patients or in outpatient clinics. This registry, which is human-research approved and compliant with confidentiality standards, has grown from 4 participating institutions in 2010 to 38 sites across the U.S. Cases collected by the ToxIC Registry in 2013 predominantly involved pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs. Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) ranked as the 4th most common reason for evaluation by a medical toxicologist, an issue that supports the recent focus by the American College of Medical Toxicology on medication safety. The report demonstrates the rapid annual growth of the Registry and its potential to provide opportunities for improved patient care and outcomes through focused research.

Another article in the December issue considers a new approach to expansion of specialized toxicology patient care through advances in computerization. Lead author Peter Chai, MD from Brown University writes that innovative new technologies, such as Google Glass ®, have revolutionized how we communicate and organize information in medicine and other industries. These devices have generated a lot of excitement, but Chai suggests organized studies to evaluate “improvement in satisfaction, clinical outcomes, workflow and cost are necessary for the long‐term integration of head-mounted wearable technologies into the clinical environment.”

Other highlights include a comprehensive review article about use of the alpha2 adrenergic agonist class of drugs for the treatment of withdrawal syndromes, a study evaluating the role of simulation for toxicology education, and a collaborative position statement on expanding access to naloxone for treatment of opioid overdose. These articles and other regular features are available in the December edition of JMT (Volume 10, Issue 4) and highlighted in the journal’s podcast.